Regional Capacity for Revitalising Higher Education in Africa |
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CHALLENGE FUND for Mobilising Regional Higher Education Capacity for Development |
Thursday, 14 December 2006
The Association of African Universities (AAU) held a consultation with some of its regional partners in Accra from 5-6 December 2006, to discuss modalities for mobilising regional capacity for revitalising higher education in Africa. This is an initiative that is being developed on the basis of a £3.5 million four-year Challenge Fund set up by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID). The Fund is to be managed by the AAU.
The Accra meeting was attended by representatives of the African Union Commission (AUC), Association of Arab Universities (AArU), Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), African Virtual University (AVU), Commission of Higher Education, Kenya, Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), Portuguese-Speaking African Countries (PALOPS), Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA), and Vice Chancellors Ghana (VCG).
This initiative began with a joint programme of action for the renewal of the African university developed by the Association of African Universities and the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), and presented to the Commission for Africa in 2005. The AAU/ACU programme, which was endorsed at a meeting of African higher education leaders and other stakeholders in Abertay, Scotland, in July 2005, formed the basis for some of the key recommendations of the Commission for Africa. Of particular note was the Commission’s call on the international community to provide the estimated US$5 billion needed to implement a higher education revitalisation programme as part of renewed support for the overall development of Africa, a call reflected in the Gleneagles Declaration issued by at the G8 Summit in Scotland in July 2005.
Parallel to this was the development and launching of the African Union’s Plan of Action for the Second Decade of Education for Africa (2006-2015) in September 2006 which, for the first time ever, identified the revitalisation of African tertiary education as one of the priority areas for the Decade.
The announcement of the £3.5 million grant to the Association of African Universities was one of the first manifestations of the new appreciation of the vital role that tertiary education has to play in Africa’s development. The “Challenge Fund” will enable the Association, through collaborative programming with its partner organisations, to encourage African higher education to play this role. The goal is to enhance the capacity of African higher education institutions to serve as catalysts for poverty eradication and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, building largely on AAU’s existing work and initiatives, and seeking synergies in the programmes and work of the various higher education bodies within and across linguistic boundaries.
Expected outcomes include enhanced information sharing on innovation and reform; policy-oriented research and briefs on new ways for higher education to contribute to national development programmes and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals; as well as the development of policy frameworks that address key issues confronting African higher education.
This is expected to be a major contribution to the implementation of the African Union’s Plan of Action for the Second Decade of Education in Africa in the area of tertiary education.
The Accra consultation provided an opportunity for stakeholders to deliberate on all these matters and develop the initial design and guidelines for operationalising the Challenge Fund. Regional and sub-regional groups and other appropriate networks are eligible to apply for funding under the Fund, which is expected to become operational by mid 2007. Project details, including eligibility criteria, modes of application and governance structures will be announced by the AAU in due course. |
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Regional Capacity for Revitalising Higher Education in Africa
